Procrastination.
The art of putting something off until later. It's not because you are incapable of doing it at that moment or looking for an easier or more efficient way to do it. It's not because there are other, more important things you have to do.
Altair had never considered himself a procrastinator; he had always thought it better to be productive. To do something, even if it was within his limited abilities. Anything was better than being trapped in his mind with his thoughts.
Right now, he wanted time to slow down. He wanted to sink into his bed and suddenly find himself in a Hogwarts hallway.
Bella's paw was tapping him on the face. He didn't want to complain because that would mean admitting that he was awake.
'Just a few more minutes,' he thought, psyching himself up.
Suddenly, the tapping stopped. Soon, he felt a weight fall onto the bed, followed by a warm hand caressing his face.
His eyelids opened like curtains, and his purple eyes met his mother's grey ones. She looked worried, as if she feared he had died in his sleep.
"Meow," she said.
Altair clenched his teeth, holding back the laughter that threatened to spill from his lips.
"Hello," he said finally.
Bellatrix kissed his forehead tenderly.
Then she licked his cheek, a cat's way of showing affection.
She then walked away and sat on the floor like a child throwing a tantrum.
The black-haired man didn't know how to continue the conversation. Perhaps, given his mother's state of mind, what had happened that day wasn't important. She was a Death Eater. She had been in similar situations before, on the verge of death.
While he was talking to himself, she threw herself at him. She didn't make a sound, but he could feel her body trembling as she hugged him.
Altair felt ashamed of himself. He had ignored his mother's feelings so often. He didn't try to justify himself by saying he was too busy. He knew he could have made time for her.
He just didn't want to think about what had happened that night. He wanted to focus on preventing it from happening again.
"Mother..." he began.
"I'm so sorry. Bella was so foolish." She blamed herself. "Bella shouldn't have let him catch her," she said.
Altair remembered that the dragon had taken his mother as bait to lure him into the Forbidden Forest.
"It's not your fault," he replied, taking her hands in his. 'It's mine,' he thought, but didn't say it out loud. "If I had been more..." He stopped himself when he saw his mother's face contort in pain. Altair let go of her and walked away. This earned him a sad moan.
Every day, he thought more and more that the right choice was to use the [Instant Recovery] skill on her. But the way it was used was too much even for him. 'You already crossed that line with Lyra,' whispered a small voice in his head.
Altair walked to a window. The view looked out over a small artificial lake. From this distance, he could see slight ripples in the water, probably caused by the wind.
"Alti," he heard behind him.
"What happened that night? It won't happen again. He won't touch you again, ever. I'll kill him before he can even think about it. That's my goal," he said.
"Too dangerous for my baby," the black-haired woman murmured. "Don't do it for me," she said.
"It's not just for you; it's for Lavender, for Harley, for Luna." He forgot to mention himself. "For everyone."
Bellatrix looked at him silently. You could see fear staining her face.
"Pff!" she mocked. "You're not even a hundredth as strong as he is," she said, her face no longer showing the maternal love of before, but instead bearing a deranged grimace. Altair turned away; for a moment, he thought he saw Violet instead of his mother. "What does little Alti want? To die?" Even the loving way she said his nickname had gone. Her hand reached for her wand. Ollivander had given it to Altair long ago, and he thought it was best that she keep it in case she needed to defend herself.
With a flick of her wrist, Altair almost ended up tied to the wall. If it hadn't been for his superhuman reflexes, he would have ended up as part of the decorations.
His mother was mad. But even then, he could see that she was trying to persuade him.
"You seem to think I have a choice," he said. "I don't. He'll come looking for me. He wants to kill me as much as I want to kill him."
"You can hide," she said. Her face was serious now.
"I was hiding. At Hogwarts. Has your wound healed yet?" he asked her.
She didn't answer.
"I can—"
"You can't protect me," he interrupted.
"Can you protect yourself?" She was now tilting her face to the right, her wand poking her own cheek.
"I can," he confirmed.
He heard his mother laugh out loud. At that moment, Altair could see the Bellatrix from the movies.
After a few seconds, she remained silent.
The first spell was quick. Unpredictable. Altair had trained with his mother a couple of times before and now realised how much she had held back. Back then, he hadn't been as strong as he is now, and never felt so overwhelmed.
Altair conjured a shield. It shattered under the brute force of the spell. He only just managed to get out of the way in time.
The second spell came in the same way as the first. Altair had no idea from what angle she had thrown it. He gave up on using shields and started dodging instead.
The spell passed over his head, took a strange turn, and hit him in the back. Altair began to dance, his mother's laughter serving as music.
"Concentrate! You must be able to distinguish the intention behind each spell. Know which ones are the most dangerous. The ones you can shield and the ones you should dodge"
"I can identify the spells," he said, sounding a little annoyed as he cancelled the spell.
"Oh yes, by colours and that nonsense. Real wizards can ignore that at a certain point," said Bella, casting a red spell curse Altair knew well: Cruciatus.
He took a step to the side, his footwork impeccable. This time, he looked back, waiting for the curse to turn around. He threw a chair at it with his wand.
He couldn't stop him with a shield, and continuing to dodge seemed impossible indefinitely. The curse circled the chair and hit Altair in the stomach. He braced himself for the pain, but instead began to laugh like an imbecile. Without a word or a wand, he cast Finite Incantatem on himself. His mother looked at him, bored.
Altair shook his head, briefly believing that his mother would cast a forbidden curse on him. But she proved her point, making it seem as if the spell was something else entirely.
This brief interaction made him realise the difference between a gifted student and a Dark Lord's general.
"I didn't know spells could be manipulated like that," he said.
"It's a spell I learned from Vold-." Her neck twisted to the point of pain. Altair lunged towards her. "I'm fine, come back," she said. She managed to straighten her face. He didn't move away from her, continuing to caress her neck gently.
"I've never heard you say his name before," he said when he realised she was no longer in danger.
"Because my neck would break if I said it," she replied seriously. "Never mind, oops!" She stuck out her tongue. "You need tremendous control over magic to change the direction of spells. It's a spell called motus. It's cast parallel to the main spell. First, you need to be able to cast two spells at once. Then you have to maintain the balance of power between them so that neither overpowers the other. The more complicated the main spell, the harder it is to control its direction with Motus. Even I can only use it with childish spells." She seemed a little annoyed by the last remark. "He was able to manipulate even the Killing Curse."
Altair didn't need to be told who he was.
"Can you teach me?" he asked. "I know... I'm not that strong in the grand scheme of things. Right now, I'm no match for Voldemort or my procreator. But if I want to stand a chance against them, I need to train. And deep down, you know as well as I do that I can't run away. So please... help me." He showed a little weakness in front of her, yes, but she was her mother.
"Of course, baby," his mother replied excitedly. Altair could never understand his mother's mood swings. "But I want something in return," she said, cupping his face in her hands.
"Of course," he thought. He couldn't say no.
"I need you to help me talk to your sister," she said, pouting pitifully.
"With me?" a voice asked from the door.